Written by Lucas Prestridge, Eli Johnson, Cassie Stallings, Kinsley Williams
On Tuesday,February 27, 2024 five Shell Knob School students and three teachers attended the First Annual Coding Olympiad at Missouri State University. The Coding Olympiad was sponsored by the Missouri State University CODERS Project: Computer Science Opportunities, Development, and Education in Rural Schools (https://www.msucoders.org/ ). SKS has been a participating school in the CODERS project since 2021.
SKS Middle School students were given the opportunity to participate in The Coding Olympiad and were asked to submit a short essay telling why they would be a positive addition to a Coding team and why they should be selected to participate. Lucas Prestridge, Lennox Rose, Eli Johnson, Cassie Stallings, and Kinsley Williams were selected to represent SKS at the Coding Olympiad. Coders project teachers, Mrs. Thompson-Krug, Miss Miller, and Mrs. Everett, accompanied the students to Missouri State University. Mr. Schumann, also a Coders Project teacher, was unable to attend.
Sixteen schools from Southwest Missouri participated in the Coders Olympiad. The event consisted of five coding challenges the students were to work together to solve within a two hour time limit. The four teams with the most challenges solved at the end of the two hour time limit received trophies. While our SKS Coding Team did not place in the top four, we did learn a great deal from the experience.
Our Coders team felt that the experience really helped to strengthen and improve their coding skills. It was a very challenging and exciting experience. We learned working against the clock makes it hard to focus and we tend to make things more complicated than they actually are. Team dynamics were improved by the experience as well. We learned that everyone’s voice matters and we have to stop and listen to each other. We had a lot of fun improving our skills and hope to attend again next year. We also plan to work hard, learn more about coding, improve our skills, and aim for first place next year.